A convicted Philadelphia mass murderer and drug trafficker has been released from death row after President Biden announced he was doing so reclassification of the sentences of 37 people in federal prison to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The White House announced Biden’s decision Monday morning, explaining that the president believes America should avoid the death penalty at the federal level except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass killings.
“When President Biden took office, his administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today will prevent the next administration from carrying out execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice. … This historic clemency action builds on the President’s record of criminal justice reform,” a White House statement said.
Mr. Biden granted clemency to 37 of 40 federal prisoners facing the death penalty, including the infamous convicted drug lord and mass murderer, Kaboni Savage.
In 2013, a federal jury in Philadelphia unanimously found Savage guilty committing or directing 12 murdersincluding the deaths of four children, one of whom was a 15-month-old baby boy, and two adults by firebombing their home in 2004 in retaliation for a former gang member.
CBS Philadelphia
The jury convicted Savage of twelve murders, at the time the most in modern Philadelphia history, and then sentenced him to death. This was the first death penalty in the federal district since the penalty was reinstated in 1988.
The three inmates who were not granted leniency are the convicted murderer in the case Tree of Life Synagogue shootingthe shooter at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, and the surviving Boston Marathon bomber.
